I like to optimize things and I read in a couple posts in various places online some things about modifying QoS, UDP, and something about "traffic shaping." I'm not much of a network buff, I'm more into hardware, but I know my way around a router setting page if I try. The stuff I found on optimizing FiOS (and in particular the MI424WR Rev. F router that came with my FiOS) was sparse and unclear or too technical.

What I've done so far is changed the router's MTU settings to 1492 since apparently that's what FiOS uses, as per this thread. Changing the MTU manually on my PS3 from 1500 to 1492 as well caused my speed test via speakeasy.net/speedtest to jump from about 12 to 15mbps for both wired and wireless connections.

I do not know how to affect Xbox360's use of MTU, and hopefully changing the settings in the router as per the link above does the trick. I do not really know how to test that theory though.

For my PC I believe the verizon optimizer already adjusted the settings like MTU and other numbers I'm less familiar with.

However, from what I read, adjusting MTU settings is not the only tweak that can improve online gaming for both consoles and PCs. As I mentioned, I saw things about QoS, UDP, and traffic shaping. The link imbedded in "unclear" above seemed to contain information about QoS and maybe other methods of improving online gaming... something about flooding game servers or other hosting players with too many packets or too much information with your own higher-speed connection actually causes you lag... and something about upload/download synchronicity... Anyway, my service is 15down/5up.

If anyone could clear up or compile the patchwork of info I've managed to find surfing the web into one coherent and clear compilation in this thread, it would not only help me, but others like me searching for the above topic. Thanks.

QoS (Quality of Service) is traffic shaping. You do want to do this and prioritize your game packets first. This allows you to for example stream video without impacting your game. The only other thing is port forwarding. The site www.portforward.com is great for this. Other than this, most other tweaks are hit and miss. I'm not versed with the FIOS router, but it should be simple enough to configure these settings.

I've had to do port forwarding for games in the past (only on the PC), but I thought UPnP was supposed to take care of that with modern games, systems, and/or network setups, no?

When it comes to traffic shaping with QoS, I'm clueless. Never touched it and I have no idea what to do. One place that I found and linked above seemed to involve someone helping someone else with QoS settings but it was convoluted and I don't think English was the first language of the guy giving directions or explaining things... How would I go about prioritizing game packets?

Edit: I found the QoS page on my router's config page, but have no idea what to do.

Ok. So here's what I see with when I click the add for Broadband Connection (Coax) Rules:

Not sure what to do with these options...

Question though, is there any reason to shape traffic for the entire house or should I just limit it to myself (or rather my own computer's address) using the "Source/Destination Address" fields or is that for something else? Also, will traffic shaping for gaming limit performance in other internet uses in any way?

It's a pretty shitty recommendation to be honest, but I would suggest getting a third party router and have everything set there. There is a lot more information on QoS settings among Linksys, D-Link and Netgear brands. Not to mention that most have Linux firmware that's even more powerful (and technical). However, they have a lot more help and information regarding them than for your FIOS router. I've looked around and your a bit in the dark there. In the long run, it's probably worthwhile.

I appreciate the effort in looking around. I have a Linksys WRT54G router which I previously installed 3rd party firmware to (DD-WRT, which is awesome) to fix an issue I had with it before. However, it's not exactly cutting edge and I would bet that this router has it beat in specs. Plus the MI424WR has wireless N broadcast. Maybe I could use both.. the Linksys for my computer (its hardwired anyway) and the fios router (which acts as the modem too where the coaxle cable goes) for broadcasting the wireless signal for the rest of the house? That way I can just set up the QoS settings for the linksys router which only affects my computer and leave the FIOS router alone. Thoughts?

QOS is NOT traffic shaping. QOS is an entire toolset of traffic controlling mechanisms that include traffic shaping. And like most things QOS it helps some part of your datastream but hurts another.

All traffic shaping will do is hold onto packets and transfer them at an average rate as no to go above what you set the max transfer rate to. This is good because sometimes downstream your packets will get dropped because you send them to fast or above what they cap you at. But at the same time it delays those packets to do so which means they can get to the other side to late to be of use. This would be the case with traffic from gaming, that is a tiny datastream that must arrive on time or you will see ghosting and things like that.

So traffic shape only if you have to to keep your traffic from being dropped.

Also beyond that all QOS will do for you on the internet is basically just let you decide what goes out your pipe first but you should properly prioritize it to do so. So if i were going to prioritize my common home traffic that's important I would do it like this in general.

1)voice over IP of any kind (but ONLY the actual voice traffic)2)call control protocols like SIP3)gaming4) everything else

Also beyond that all QOS will do for you on the internet is basically just let you decide what goes out your pipe first but you should properly prioritize it to do so. So if i were going to prioritize my common home traffic that's important I would do it like this in general.

1)voice over IP of any kind (but ONLY the actual voice traffic)2)call control protocols like SIP3)gaming4) everything else

How would you do this? I can probably find the settings if you just tell me what you would do. Don't think I would need a step by step specific to my router. Or if you know of a good guide to point me to that would be appreciated... ^_^

It wholly depends on your router. In fact many routers have little or no QOS, especially the less expensive ones.

I would find the online manual for your router and see if it is mentioned. If it is it will tell you what you need to do.

In general there will be some type of classification in it where you can assign whatever priorities it has to your traffic. The hitch is you generally need to know what ports your traffic is using so the router knows which is which.

Things like OpenWRT and the others have this built-in. So if you do not have it but can load those you can have QOS.

sometimes using 'applications and gaming' option works well. If you know what ports your gaming works on (most gaming sites tell you in the FAQ or support pages) you can set the destination address to your gaming device. Also you can pick which protocol because most of gaming sites tell you that information as well. i have noticed some improvements from it nothing to go crazy over but did notice. Remember if your IP address changes every couple of days you may have to back into your router and manually change it to the new address. This happens if you have multiple devices needing IP's.

I have the same router and used it to play WoW and had the ports setup. Like i said minor increase but nothing to get to excited about.

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